Day 3: Mexican Hat to Wrist

It was calm and a bit foggy as we broke camp, but not until we enjoyed some breakfast burritos with eggs that I had scrambled and frozen before the trip with a pound of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage and salsa.

The wind came up a bit (still from the east) which was great as it blew us right towards the west end of the lake, and the sun finally came out. It was looking like a bluebird day for us! We worked our way through some beaver activity and spotted an eagle in its nest along the narrow area leading to the portage eastward. Paddling this narrow section into Nutria Lake reminded me a bit of paddling the Wawiag River in Quetico for some reason. The relatively easy 120 rod portage to Amber Lake seemed shorter than that distance, but I wasn’t complaining, on this first carry of the trip. The double portaging seemed to be just fine and didn’t slow us up any real amount.

  Amber is a pretty lake, and lies long and skinny in an east-west direction. We were grateful to be heading east with a good tailwind, and made our way to the short carry (70 meters) into Streak Lake. We would only be crossing a far eastern bay of Streak on our way to Wrist Lake, but we decided to have lunch at what used to be a campsite there so we could gear our rods up for trolling for lakers once we got to Wrist. Wrist was bigger water, and I wondered how much the wind would pound us once there. At our lunch site, there was half of a moose jaw that looked like the wolves had gotten this past winter.

I had heard many good things about Wrist, especially that it holds good numbers and size of lake trout and pike, but noone could tell of any walleyes caught there. There were several areas of sand beach, and another group had just seen a woodland caribou on the southern part of the lake two weeks before our trip. That prospect certainly excited us as well, so we finished lunch and made the 20-rod carry into Wrist. We were greeted by a sandy beach put-in and some fresh moose tracks there, and the day was starting to really warm up.

We began trolling immediately, working our way northward along the eastward shore to stay out of the wind. The depthfinder showed drops to over 200 feet in several places, and Greg’s rod bent over as we approached the island grouping. A 22-inch lake trout was boated, and my anticipation grew, since I had only caught one laker in my trips up to canoe country. That fish was a 15 inch trout caught trolling across Argo Lake in 2006. 5 minutes later, my deep Tail Dancer produced an equally-sized fish, and I was on the board. We turned eastward into the wind in the area where the lake opens, and I felt a strong tug on my rod again. This time it was a 27” dandy, which would prove to be the biggest we took on the trip. We met at an island campsite to check it out and discuss our luck. Everyone in the group had caught a laker in the first hour on Wrist, and it was looking like a gorgeous lake.   The site we were on had a nice firepit, but was pretty exposed in the sun and lacked three tentpads. We stumbled across a loon’s nest on the north side of the island, and it had two eggs in it. I snapped a photo and moved away, hoping to not disturb the parents. This seemed to be an omen to leave the site alone and look for a new home. I had sites marked on the north shore, but the first one we came to was not in good shape from deadfalls and a poor landing. The second one had some promise, but would require some work with the saws to make it habitable. Tent pads were sketchy, but it was getting hot and we were ready to take a break from paddling. The flattest area of the site was in the back, where there would have been numerous good tent pad opportunities if not for the widowmakers that stood above. We knew we had to move the fire ring and cut up three good-sized trees to make the site workable, so we put the tents further towards the lake. Two hours worth of work later, it became a nice site for us. Someone had left a piece of plywood there, so we supported that with some rocks and made a cooking table, even though WCPP prefers that sites remain “unfurnished”. The east wind was still strong, and we headed out to troll again. More lakers were willing biters, and we were enjoying our luck despite the work to keep the right speed and course in the wind. I felt a huge strike but then nothing as I began retrieving for a few seconds. The wind was blowing us towards shore as Brett tried to steady the canoe while I dealt with this lunker. My drag screamed out quickly, but a second later my line snapped and I can only wonder what was on the other end. I was using Deep Tail Dancer with a steel leader and 10-lb Fireline, but I think what happened was that the fish was a big pike. He swam towards me at first which was why I didn’t feel much of a fight after the hookset, but then went nuts when he saw the boat and sawed my line off on some rocks. If anyone sees a toothy critter with a #9 purple Rapala in his maw, I’d like it back!

We baked a couple of the lakers in foil with lemon and onions…excellent!

They made the perfect complement to our chili-mac that night, and the wind laid down for the night, making a memorable night of a campfire and stars.